Vortex Syndrome
This is an increasingly strange moment, and the President of the United States is an increasingly strange and incoherent man. This is not something that has to be a partisan point, and I propose no next step that serves anyone’s politics — just notice, for now, and figure out the rest on your own terms. I’ve compared Joe Biden to Leonid Brezhnev, and Biden’s place in our political trajectory to Brezhnev’s position as an indicator of societal decline, and here we are again. I’ll get to the insane substance in a moment, but let’s start with the obviousness of the man’s bizarre affect. Turn off your politics for a moment and pretend you’re just watching the old guy who lives down the street. Watch this closely, ideally on full screen — and notice that he blinks once, around the 1:22 mark (and maybe a little one at 0:07):
If you saw a pastor or a small-town mayor or a school principal speaking like this, you would think it was unsettling. If you saw an elderly man in your family speaking this way, you’d call the doctor. This is video posted on the blue-checked POTUS account, official footage that someone at the White House decided to move to the foreground, and it’s disturbing. They didn’t notice the dead-eyed, overdosed stare?
The effect of the whole speech this footage is taken from is even more disturbing, if you can stomach it all. At least watch from 8:20 to 8:30, if you’re inclined to take notice of the thing, and watch the weird shift.
Now, the substance. As I’ve said before, remember that the prevailing argument, not that long ago, was that Trump caused an insurrection:
Trump summoned rioters. He incited them. He whipped them up and sent them in. Now, suddenly, the argument has changed, without explanation, to Trump did nothing:
Monday: The outrageous thing is that Trump caused this.
Tuesday: The outrageous thing is that Trump caused this.
Wednesday: The outrageous thing is that Trump didn’t act.
So Biden is aggressively using emotionally loaded language — dripping with blood! — to downgrade the accusation. He’s escalating in description, and backing down in substance. The line about Trump sitting in his dining room is a bizarre disconnect from the tone of the speech; the sound of the thing, as pure noise, is rage and fire, but then the actual line is that the President of the United States has a dining room, and he sits in it. It’s like you see King Lear raging at the storm — but then when you get close enough to hear what he’s saying, he’s just saying he didn’t like his sandwich.
And then we come to Joe Biden ranting about Trump not being pro-cop. I’m sorry, but what the fuck? Suddenly Biden is Cartoon George Wallace, warning about the goddamn longhairs, ‘cause those dirty sons-of-bitches don’t back the badge like ol’ rock-ribbed Joe does. Keep talkin’ bad on our boys in blue, punk, ‘cause you got a knuckle sandwich comin’ yer way from the Oval Office.
Does anyone on the planet believe Joe Biden talking this way? I’d call him a hypocrite, but I’m guessing he doesn’t remember anything he said before last weekend.
But then, finally, let’s deal with the hyperemotional language. On January 6, police were subjected to medieval hell! They were dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage!
In another month, at the current trajectory, Joe Biden will be saying that January 6 was LITERALLY THE HOLOCAUST AND THE BLACK PLAGUE PUT TOGETHER AND MULTIPLIED BY THE BATTLE OF VERDUN, and his eyes will roll back in his head as he screams it to the skies, like Howard Beale right before the collapse. Double that if the economic decline becomes more obvious. On January 6, when Donald Trump personally murdered a million billion little babies and stabbed innocent kittens in the eyes with a giant sword clenched his blood-drenched hands, uh, uh, uh…..
This is what people sound like when they know an argument isn’t working, and they hope to pound it through the indifference of the audience. It’s the squalid sound of decline. This white-knuckled struggle ends poorly, and soon.
Let's just assume from now on that I'm always going to have another thought right after I hit "post," and everybody just always read the comments thirty seconds later. What we need right now is to hear from people who can speak with clarity and calm, who can reduce our anger and division and find some way to talk to people across the partisan divide, or I guess the plural partisan divides. Biden's speech is so tanked up with darkness it's nearly criminal. Dripping in blood! Medieval hell! The excessiveness is so extreme it begins to remind me of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet.
1) Wow, those insurrectionists stayed inside the bollards, like, the whole time. That's really courteous and polite of them.
2) Were the American revolutionaries insurrectionists? Joe just said you can't be for insurrection and for America at the same time. So I'm confused. Did the Sons of Liberty have to contend with bollards of any kind? That seems like something the British might have done to confound them.